Magic City (28 page)

“
Magic City
is one of those fine novels that one reads not because right makes might, because good does not triumph, but the book is read because we need to remind ourselves of the sad failure to safely, thoroughly, integrate America's human community.”

—Flagstaff Review

“As in
Voodoo Dreams
, Rhodes calls upon her talent for summoning up the literary device called magical realism.”

—Mesa Tribune

“A combination of history, mystical happenings and murder makes this a thrilling read.”

—Newton
[Massachusetts]
Tab

“With precise detail and fully drawn characters, Jewell Parker Rhodes has created a novel that brings us closer to the truth about our country and ourselves. These are the truths we should be seeking. This is the place to find them.”

—Susan Straight, author of
I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen
and Licked Out All the Pots and The Gettin Place

“In
Magic City
, Jewell Parker Rhodes has made a tragic American story come vividly to life and has made these people—black and white and red, rich and poor, educated and illiterate—all achingly human. Rhodes must be commended for bringing such an important story front and center, and for making it as instructive and as moving as it is horrific.”

—Randall Kenan, author of
Let the Dead Bury Their Dead
and
A Visitation of Spirits

“Jewell Parker Rhodes's
Magic City
takes an ugly chapter of American history and turns it into a human tale of vulnerable people with imperfect motives and skewed vision, people who interact in dire ways with monumental consequences…. I could not, would not put this book down, not even after its last searing sentence.”

—Julianne Malveaux, author of
Sex, Lies, and Stereotypes

“We've seen Jewell Parker Rhodes use magic before to explore the meanings of, and urge drama from, history, and her approach here to the evocative and outrageous events of 1921 shows us that magic can cut two ways. Rhodes writes about our common human plight with a powerful dramatist's voice; she has created with
Magic City
a clear open window on a rueful day.”

—Ron Carlson, author of
Plan B for the Middle Class

“
Magic City
is a victory against amnesia. One will remember Tulsa, 1921! This book captures the literary magic of a woman who is fast becoming a bright and shining star. Not even Houdini could create more wonder.”

—E. Ethelbert Miller, editor of
In Search of Color Everywhere:
A Collection of African-American Poetry

MAGIC CITY
. Copyright © 1997 by Jewell Parker Rhodes. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First HarperPerennial edition published 1998.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

Rhodes, Jewell Parker.

Magic City : a novel / by Jewell Parker Rhodes—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-06-018732-8

1. Afro-American men—Oklahoma—Tulsa—Fiction.

PS3568.H63 M34    1997

813'.54—dc21

97-4271

EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-208530-6

98 99 00 01 02

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